Lords of the Fallen had “tough start” due to Dark Souls comparison, producer isn’t hiding inspiration

Lords of the Fallen executive producer Tomasz Gop has explained that comparisons between Deck13’s tough RPG and From Software’s Dark Souls franchise led to a “tough start” for the project.

It follows my own Lords of the Fallen interview with Gop, during which we discussed the game’s challenging combat mechanic, brutal difficulty and deeper plot. Dark Souls fans should actually check it out.

Now, speaking with DigitalSpy, Gop said, “I had a really tough time around a year ago, or even beyond that. It’s a tough start for a developer to be associated that strongly with something, even if it is something that’s a great inspiration.

“But at the same time, just one day I said, ‘Hey man, you have to let go. Whatever people think, just make sure it’s not going to be a rip-off, it’s not going to be a bad inspiration,’ and I sleep way better since then.

“I’ve never heard people saying that you have ripped off that game completely, which is good enough for me. There are a lot of inspirations in this game – and everybody can see that – and I’m not going to be hiding that.

“There are fighting games like Tekken and Street Fighter, there are elements of Souls games and so on, and we definitely try to nail the elements that bumped the feeling of the game being punishing for a lot of players, especially for people who don’t treat games like 600-page books, where they have to bite nails into it.”

We’ll have more on Lords of the Fallen soon. It’s coming to PC, PS4 and Xbox One later this year.